"We are the only country in history that ever deliberately changed its ethnic makeup, and history has few examples of 'diversity' creating a stable society." - Richard Lamm, former governor of Colorado

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Defense attorneys, legal experts and even longtime colleagues are raising serious questions about District Attorney Mike Nifong's judgment and integrity. The central question: Why is he pressing on with a case that looks pitifully weak and is getting weaker all the time?

"I think they're going to be found not guilty - if they go to trial," said Bob Brown, an attorney in private practice who once worked with Nifong in the prosecutor's office and faced him as a public defender. "The trial will be a bloodbath."

Stan Goldman, who teaches criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said if Nifong takes the three lacrosse players to trial with the evidence he appears to have now, "this guy would be the poster child in public defenders' offices around the country as the quintessential bad DA."

Nifong has been under fire from the start over weaknesses in the case, which include a lack of DNA evidence and the accuser's shaky credibility. But even some of those who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt were alarmed last week, when he dropped the rape charges after the stripper who accused the athletes wavered in her story. The men still face kidnapping and sexual offense charges.

Among other questions raised in recent weeks: Why didn't Nifong give the defense all the DNA evidence as soon as he got it? Why did it take months for anyone from his office to interview the accuser? And why did he suggest that police conduct an apparently faulty photo lineup?

"I don't see how any member of the public can have confidence in this case. I think it's making a mockery of our criminal justice system to permit this guy to keep fumbling along," said Duke University law professor James Coleman, one of Nifong's leading critics. "It's either total incompetence or it's misconduct on a scale that is extraordinary."

Nifong did not return repeated requests for comment for this story but told The Associated Press in an October interview he feels a responsibility to prosecute the case. The case is not expected to go to trial until at least the spring.

Legal observers generally agree Nifong will almost surely need more evidence than has been made public so far to convict Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, who have maintained their innocence and called the charges "fantastic lies."

"Prosecutors are not supposed to be bringing and continuing cases unless they have a good chance of winning," said John Banzhaf, a professor at George Washington University Law School. "He has to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless he's got about 10 aces up his (sleeve), in my judgment there's no way he could satisfy that criteria."

But Woody Vann, who represented the accuser several years ago and is one of the many members of the Durham bar who staunchly defended Nifong's professionalism when the story first broke, said if the prosecutor had a witness to corroborate the woman's story, it would have come out by now.

One of the biggest problems with the case is the lack of any DNA evidence connecting any member of Duke's lacrosse team to the accuser, a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University hired to perform as a stripper at a March 13 team party.

Nifong has said he doesn't need DNA to win the case. But the DNA evidence that does exist suggests she had sex with several other men close to the day of the party. The defense has said she claimed she did not have intercourse for at least a week before the party.

The defense has further said that in the hours after the party, the woman told wildly different versions of what happened. She variously estimated the number of attackers at three to 20 and said at one point that she was not raped at all.

Victims' rights advocates say rape victims are often unable to focus on the details immediately afterward. But the accuser told Nifong's investigator last week - nine months after the party - that she was no longer certain she was penetrated vaginally with a penis, as she had claimed several times before. That led Nifong to drop the rape charges.

Norm Early, a former district attorney in Denver who now works with the National District Attorneys Association, said he could not understand why Nifong didn't dump the rest of the case, too.

"It's such an incredible reliability problem that you wonder how the prosecution could rehabilitate her on the other charges," Early said.

And Vann said: "If the case rises or falls on her testimony, he's got issues. It would be difficult having this be a successful prosecution."

Among other weaknesses in the case: The accuser's credibility was damaged, at least in the court of public opinion, when it was learned that she claimed a decade ago that she was gang-raped. That case never led to an arrest.

1 Comments:

The stripper’s body was completely void of any sign of a sexual assault, the innocent boys were devoid of any scratches, bruising, or marks, and the alleged crime scene was completely devoid of DNA that would be expected in a violent gang rape.

It is impossible that a crime scene with three drunk men in a small enclosed room with a fighting and clawing woman being orally, virginally, and anally penetrated not leave any DNA evidence of urine, blood, vaginal fluid, sweat, fecal matter, scat smears, saliva, tears, or semen... especially if condoms were used. How would they take off the condoms during all this chaos without spilling, smearing, or touching the content inside or outside of the condom?

When investigators questioned the stripper after DNA tests on the semen from multiple men found inside her vagina and rectum didn’t match any of the Duke players on the entire lacrosse team, the stripper admitted to having had sex with at least three men around the time of the alleged rape including her boyfriend and two men who drove her to Duke.The DA Mike Nifong didn’t talk to the prostitute about your wild claims of gang rape, in which she described in great detail, claiming no finders or any other objects were used to penetrate her, yet Nifong did conspire with the DNA lab owner to hide evidence that proves the three victims of this lie are innocent.

I do agree with that because of Rape Shield laws, these boys, who are obviously innocent can still be found guilty. Between 1985 and 1995 35% of innocent men sent to prison for rape, were found innocent through DNA testing, but today’s “victim’s advocacy groups” want to use DNA only to convict anyone, while ignoring all DNA evidence that proves the self-proclaimed “rape-shielded” accuser is lying about being raped.